The Dry review: Raise a glass for a fun tale of a recovering alcoholic
Roisin Gallagher as Shiv Sheridan in The Dry, on RTÉ One.
Full disclosure: having auditioned and failed to get a part for The Dry, I was determined to hate it. Sadly, much like the fifth Beatle or Matthew Perry’s mate who turned down the part of Chandler Bing, I will have to live in the knowledge that this was the one that got away. This is a show which is - as much as it pains me to say it - very, very good.
Shiv is a recovering alcoholic returning home from London to attend her granny’s wake. She proudly says she is five months, 17 days, and 6 hours sober: a statement her family greet with equal amounts bemusement and, in the case of Shiv’s sister Caroline, an audible eye-roll.
Róisín Gallagher plays Shiv’s emotional complexity beautifully, with performances from fellow cast members equally poignant and genuinely funny. Pom Boyd and Ciarán Hinds as Shiv’s parents are especially good, with what is left unsaid by both being as illuminating as the dialogue itself.
What the show does particularly well is shine a light on the complicated relationship between Irish families and alcohol; the challenges not just faced by the person in recovery negotiating the new parameters of sobriety, but how a family responds to such new ways of being.
A wry comment from Caroline that "you have to be either dead or a recovering alcoholic to get a bit of attention in this family", is a telling pointer to the complex dynamics at play here, and the family tragedy we learn of does much to explain the palpable pain of those characters who are clearly looking to forget.
Of course, the parallels between Fleabag will certainly be made. Caroline’s character, in particular, is virtually identical to that of the uptight Claire, played flawlessly by Sian Clifford in the show that changed the landscape of this genre forever. Faced with a seemingly impossible task in making this character her own, however, Siobhán Cullen does so with aplomb.
For all of these narrative parallels, to call The Dry an Irish Fleabag is to do it a great disservice, because this is a show which very much stands on its own two legs.
In the wake of Bad Sisters, it is hard not to get excited about the future of female-centric stories finally claiming their rightful space on Irish television screens. The Dry can easily stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Sharon Horgan’s work as a show which moves between drama and comedy in a truly relatable and deeply authentic way. Not to be missed.
- The Dry shows on RTÉ One on Wednesday nights, and is also available on the RTÉ Player
- Julie Jay, @juliejaycomedy, is a comedian, MC and writer. Her show ‘Oops, This is Toxic’ is currently touring at venues nationwide
